Capitalism: A Love Story is a fantastic slap-upside-the-head film, just what we need right now. It’s been playing a week in New York and Los Angeles, and just opened wide. The reviews are “mixed.” Critics say it’s just Michael Moore preaching to the choir again: people who love Michael Moore will go see the film, people who hate him won’t, therefore he has no persuasive effect whatsoever.

Though Dana Stevens of Slate doubts that anyone can really love Moore:

If you already dislike Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story, his latest documentary/provocation/performance-piece/decoupage project isn’t likely to win you over. And if you love him without reservations, this movie has nothing to tell you that you haven’t already shouted through a bullhorn at a “Free Mumia” rally. But is there anyone who falls cleanly into that latter category of unabashed Moore love? The hulking Michigander’s 20-year career as an agitprop prankster, his stalwart refusal either to go away or to hone the blunt instrument of his demagogic style, has made Moore a problem for the left and the right. Even those who largely agree with Moore’s politics are often mortified by the delivery system: the juvenile stunts, the easy demonization of his opponents, the deliberate donning of blinders when a cogent counterargument comes along.

As usual, that leaves me out. I love Michael Moore, and I never shouted anything through a bullhorn. I should’ve, though. Maybe I’ll start. (Note to self: buy bullhorn.)
In his 1989 feature film debut, Roger & Me, Moore charted the ruin of his hometown of Flint, corporate headquarters of GM, and went off on a quest for an explanation from then-head of GM, Roger Smith. In his 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story, he charts the ruin of America, which is now one big Flint, pillaged by a horde of Roger Smiths. But now he doesn’t just want to ask corporate heads, or their government shills, for an explanation. Instead, he enacts an attempted Citizen’s Arrest on a grand scale. This fails, as it’s meant to, because obviously one lone Michael Moore can’t sledge-hammer this system. But a relentless mob of a hundred million smart, angry, organized citizens could. Right? RIGHT?!?

It beats me how people have managed to get themselves so completely balled up about Michael Moore, the excellent filmmaker who gave us such great stuff as Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and now Capitalism: A Love Story. Conservatives hate him and try to dismiss him for obvious reasons—he’s a real threat, a working-class lefty with nerve, brains, humor, ass-kicking rhetorical strategies, and a lifetime membership in the NRA. But liberal types don’t seem to like him much either. Even when they praise his films they do it apologetically, grudgingly, condescendingly, hastening to make clear that, of course, Moore’s a fat naïve self-aggrandizing buffoon with a tired shtick that he’s been boring us with for twenty years, but still, he does get a lot of attention and pulls off an amusing prank now and then.

Given how few people are willing to praise him out loud in public, it’s a mystery that Moore’s films are such consistent hits. They are, though. Somebody besides me is paying to watch them. In fact, Moore’s films are so popular they make lots of money, which in turn allows him to make more films, and to wind up rich himself. This leads to a furious charge of hypocrisy—how dare he profit from the capitalist system he criticizes? Why’s a rich man pretending to stand up for the poor and working class?

Here’s Liam Lacey working that angle in the Toronto Globe & Mail:

Abetted by the support of a couple of Catholic priests and a bishop, Moore says, unequivocally that “capitalism is evil” and should be eradicated.

But does he mean it? As a filmmaker creating a product for a marketplace, supported by profit-seeking investors, he obviously has some comfort level with capitalism in the sense of doing business.

Familiar logic, this. Because anyone trying to make a living is implicated in capitalistic “profit-seeking,” none of us have any right to kick about it. Any lucky soul who scores big money and argues that something should be done to make things less harsh on those who don’t have money is immediately charged with heresy because he hasn’t pulled a Jesus Christ and given away everything he owns. The nervous heretic quickly understands the necessity of converting to the Gospel of Wealth and becoming an upper-class bastard who can socialize easily with other upper-class bastards in the Hamptons or wherever.

Here are the other most typical dismissals of Moore, besides he’s-preaching-to-the-choir and he’s-a-rich-hypocrite:

Here, as in the health-care doc Sicko (2007), Moore’s real subject is the collapse of the social contract. That’s a powerful theme, but why did he have to make the film’s villain nothing less than…capitalism itself? Moore depicts the very concept of American free enterprise as inherently unjust. But even if you believe that deregulation in the ’80s went too far, that unchecked capitalism is a voracious beast that can eat a culture alive, you may have a hard time swallowing the film’s finale, in which Moore trashes our system as ”evil” and pushes for a citizens’ ”revolt.” At its best, Capitalism: A Love Story is a searing outcry against the excesses of a cutthroat time. At its worst, it’s dorm-room Marxism.

Why does he have to make capitalism the villain? Because capitalism is killing us right now, and we can all see it and feel it and practically smell it. Anybody out there following the news lately?

Moore has been arguing for twenty years that we need a return to serious government regulation, and a recommitment to the idea of the common good as a primary motivating factor in our culture. So okay, Obama gets elected, but uh, strangely enough, Goldman Sachs is still calling the shots. Now what? What rhetorical strategies can he deploy? The hard right is unreachable. How to motivate the snooty left and an angry yet inactive American center? How about shouting “capitalism is evil” in a crowded theater? Followed by “socialism doesn’t sound so bad”? A little dorm-room Marxism might be just the way to get everybody up on their hind legs ready to fight for what they want.

Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun:

In the end, [Moore] lacks mental toughness and clarity. In his melodramatic view of politics, capitalism alone brings out the worst in men. He says that we must replace capitalism with its opposite: democracy. The symmetry doesn’t work. Capitalism is an economic system; democracy, a political system.

Sragow’s always exemplary mental toughness and clarity doesn’t allow him to see that an economic system can have an impact on a political system and vice versa. The two can even be inextricably intertwined. Communism, anyone?

Moore is trying to suggest that our commitment to capitalism has subsumed our commitment to democracy. As Exhibit A, Moore gives us an appalling suit-and-tied Wall Street Journal git bragging how he personally has no commitment to democracy, because there have been poor democratic countries, but capitalism has made America great because it’s made America rich. Some of America, anyway.

Moore also shows us excerpts from a horrifying letter circulating among an elite group of bankers and rich investors openly identifying the new “plutonomy” which allows 1% of the population to control 95% of the wealth, and lays out an action plan for keeping it that way. The only potential danger, investors are warned, is the ongoing democratic system of one-person, one-vote. So apparently democracy still has something to do with capitalism in America, though maybe not for long.

Anyway, let’s see if we can get it straight: Moore makes impassioned arguments in a popular mass media form to people who still have some latent political muscle, and he wants to persuade them to use it before it’s too late. Maybe his way isn’t the right way. Probably it won’t work. But after all, how DO you persuade people like the scared majority of Americans to get smart and stop supporting the buzzards who are picking their bones clean? How would you do it? And if you know so damn much about it, why DON’T you do it?

Moore doesn’t make properly objective documentaries.

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter notes that “Simplifications are Moore’s stock-in-trade, and his documentaries are not known for their impeccable research and objectivity.”

Pop quiz: define “documentary” in terms of its history as an objective form of filmed reportage.

That’ll be a very short essay.

Film History Lesson:

Direct Cinema is that fly-on-the-wall documentary style that most people vaguely assume is the gold standard of documentaries because the filmmaker is not seen or heard and you can kid yourself the film is free of the filmmaker’s subjective take on the material. It represented a break with documentary tradition, because prior to the 1950s-‘60s documentaries were largely staged affairs, featuring authoritative “Voice-of-God” narration telling you what to think about the images. Technological innovations during and after WW II, such as lighter cameras, faster film stocks, and portable sound recording equipment, allowed documentary filmmakers to get out in the streets and shoot on the run, and the Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema movement developed.

Cinema Verite was the more aggressive form of the new documentaries, featuring a filmmaker insisting upon his/her presence in the film, often asking deliberately provoking questions (“Are you happy?”) and sometimes bringing the film subjects into the process to analyze their own participation.

Yeah, you guessed it—Michael Moore is in the Cinema Verite line.

In the ‘70s Direct Cinema came under fire, as people argued that it represented a bigger lie, the pretense of impossible objectivity. After all, some subjective schmoe is framing the shot, editing material in or out for some intended effect, etc. So years of doc experimentation followed, addressing the fraught relationship of film to reality and authentic experience.

These days we watch Synthesis Documentaries, which feature a mushy, familiar set of conventions we tend to embrace as “objective,” neutral, representing no particular point of view, weighing all controversies fairly and impersonally. All the techniques tossed out by Direct Cinema filmmakers in the interests of “neutral” observation are back—talking-head interviews, voice-over narration, musical scores, intertitles, archival materials, etc. Just think PBS.

We buy the Synthesis Documentaries as “impeccably researched” and “objective” because we are stupid and we learn nothing and we remember nothing.

But it’s true, Michael Moore insists upon the fact that he’s making an argument in film form, that it is his argument based on his experience, that he is not neutral.

Moore’s an egomaniac hogging the spotlight in his own films, pretending to be a blue-collar simpleton surprised by his filmic encounters.

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon:

But 20 years after “Roger & Me,” “Capitalism: A Love Story” proves that Michael Moore’s greatest subject is himself. This is a love story, all right, but it has less to do with the flaws of capitalism than it does with Moore’s unwavering fondness for the sound of his own voice, and for what he perceives as his own vast cleverness.

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter:

As in his previous films, Moore is himself the chief character, offscreen narrator and investigator. Wearing his inseparable baseball cap and T-shirt, he pretends wide-eyed surprise as his interview subjects recount personal dramas related to America’s economic meltdown.

Moore’s film persona is exactly that, and has remained consistent from film to film. He plays himself as a sane working class guy trying to figure out what the hell’s going on, a proxy for other presumably sane working class people who also would like to know what the hell’s going on. He dresses the part. His insistence on his own presence in his films goes back to the very first shots of Roger & Me—ME, see?— and is vital to his argument, which is that his own lived experience, in his view, reflects the larger American experience of late capitalism.

Yes, this gives him a lot of screen time.

Moore is the left-wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh.

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly:

Pointing his finger at ”capitalism” Moore sounds a little too much like Rush Limbaugh getting hot under the collar about ”socialism.” In both cases, they’re not making an argument — they’re demonizing a word.

Liam Lacey, Toronto Globe & Mail:

Though presumably a fan of more, rather than less, government involvement in the economy, Moore sees the bailout as another example of the rich screwing the poor, and rather unexpectedly ends up sounding like the anti-government zealots from the right.

In the movie’s most painfully redundant scenes, Moore approaches the Manhattan headquarters of Goldman Sachs and other investment banks and stands outside with a bag, asking the doorman to let him in to reclaim America’s money. Now that 20 years have passed since his first film, Roger and Me, can we all just agree to tap into our collective memory of these moments when Moore is refused entry into corporate high-rises by polite and embarrassed doormen (all of whom belong to the working class he so loves to champion)? We get it, Mike: The head of GM will not see you. The chairman of Goldman Sachs will not see you. The secretary of the U.S. Treasury will not see you. Waste any more footage on this tired gag, and your loyal fan base may start to feel the same way.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times:

Mr. Moore doesn’t just refer to “Roger & Me,” which involved his attempts to speak with Roger Smith, the chief executive of the floundering General Motors; he also includes some nominal highlights from that 1989 movie. A lot of performers like to replay their early hits, so it isn’t surprising that Mr. Moore, a practiced showman, recycles images of his younger, slimmer self engaging in one of his trademark moves: trying to enter a building to speak truth to power, only to be turned away by security guards. It was faintly amusing theater then, especially if you didn’t think too hard about the fact that he was hassling working people just trying to do their jobs. It’s less amusing when he repeats the same routine in “Capitalism.”

The critics have noticed that Michael Moore is returning to certain scenes and situations he’s filmed before—nice work, critics! Way to stay awake through the whole film!

But let’s consider whether there might be a reason for doing this before we scorn him for it. Perhaps Moore is trying to emphasize the fact that he’s been doing this for twenty years now, not just because he’s too lazy to film new kinds of scenes, but because there is a certain cumulative power to memories of Moore, Working-class Man, making endless trips up steps to formidable buildings trying to get an accounting from CEOs of their ruinous practices. He STILL can’t get one, and he’s now rich and famous for trying. No one can get one. The president can’t get one. When are we going to demand they come out of those fortress-buildings and face us?

Though it is true that trying to persuade people to think about what’s going on does include occasionally “hassling” them when they’re merely trying to do their jobs guarding the entrance to Goldman Sachs for, no doubt, pitifully low pay.

Moore’s exploitative in manipulating audience emotions.

Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post says “…Moore’s sentimental appeals too often veer toward the maudlin (he’s neck and neck with Oprah in making his interviewees cry)…”

Manohla Dargis, NY Times:

Captain Mike is here to explain it all or at least crack jokes, milk tears, recycle the news and fan the flames of liberal indignation. Along the way, because his heart is in the right place even if his images aren’t always, he also makes room for other voices, including those of striking workers and members of one family in foreclosure who videotaped the police breaking down the door to evict them.

Dana Stevens, Slate:

One section of the film deals with so-called “dead peasant” insurance policies, a malevolent practice in which large companies (including, for a period in the ’90s, Wal-Mart) take out hefty policies on employees who seem unlikely to die, essentially betting on the odds of their survival. Moore interviews the families of two Wal-Mart employees who were horrified to learn, after their beloveds’ deaths, that the company stood to profit by them (in one case, to the tune of $1.5 million). The way Moore gathers one such family around the kitchen table, then leaves the camera on the children’s faces while their father remembers their mother’s final days, feels exploitive and crass. The scene makes you cry, yes—who wouldn’t when hearing how a little girl asked whether she could cut a hole in the hospital wall to see her mother one last time?—but it seems like something you shouldn’t be allowed to see. Once again, Moore’s goodhearted aims come into direct conflict with his bludgeoning tactics.

The way we have allowed ourselves to be tied in knots, so that we can’t make a move in any direction, is really wonderful. We can’t express any emotion over terrible things because that’s “maudlin,” we can’t try to take action because that’s naïve and simplistic, we can’t “make capitalism the villain,” we can’t indulge in class warfare, we can’t try for political change because it seems to make no difference what party’s in power, we can’t identify with labor and the underclass because that’s dorm-room Marxism and a one-way ticket to Palookaville, we can’t identify with the leisured rich because we’ve got no money and refuse to be as completely stupid as all that. We can’t do nuthin.’

Well, maybe rob banks and commit workplace massacres. Those are still options.

In the end, what is to be done? After watching “Capitalism,” it beats me. Mr. Moore doesn’t have any real answers, either, which tends to be true of most socially minded directors in the commercial mainstream and speaks more to the limits of such filmmaking than to anything else.

Liam Lacey, Toronto G & M:

These things are shameful, but what do they tell us about economics? Through inference, we can guess that the capitalism Moore is angry about is capitalism gone berserk, as the free-market theories of Milton Friedman and others became enshrined into the Reaganite, neo-con ideology of deregulation, anti-unionism and tax-cutting.

Like pure socialism, free-market capitalism seems like one of those single, unifying ideas that have no place in the real world.

In the end, the best the weary-sounding Moore can suggest is that capitalism needs to be replaced by “democracy,” which amounts to exchanging one slippery term for another. Admitting that he’s grown tired of his own theatrics, Moore urges the audience to “join him” in his cause. Well sure, Captain Mike, as soon as we can figure out what exactly that’s supposed to be.

Yeah, Moore didn’t give us The Answer in his twenty-year filmic harangue, because nobody knows The Answer, but he’s certainly identified the main problems and outlined a number of lively suggestions for action. And now he’s throwing the ball to us, and we can’t think of enough ways to drop it. But I’m sure he’ll check in with us in another twenty years, in 2029, if he’s around, to see how that’s working out for us.

68 Comments

My objection to Moore is that he’s just plain wrong—most of his “solutions” are about as stupid as solving the problem of one’s mother’s low ceilings by cutting her head off—and that he’s deliberately dishonest. Documentarians are allowed to have points-of-view, but deliberately putting together false stuff is Right Out.

Mike is doing the right thing by becoming rich, instead of giving away his wealth – and not only for selfish reasons.

By keeping his money, he contributes in a small way towards corrupting the system – his documentaries becoming especially damning, coming from a guy who “made it”. But by giving his money away to the needy, he contributes to alleviating social tensions and reducing the prospects for revolution. In other words, by “abandoning” the system he becomes its agent.

As such, those who criticize him for hypocrisy are themselves the bigger liars and hypocrites.

4.
Grimgrin | October 4th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

Dolan nailed the lefts hatred of Michael Moore once upon a time in the original Exile.

“They booed because when Moore started fighting, they felt ashamed, then angry — because in some vestigial corner of their minds, they knew they should have been standing with him.”

God damned right Mr Dolan. Too God damned right.

5.
RanDomino | October 4th, 2009 at 11:03 pm

the real failing of working-class intellectuals- they come upon the world some time in their late teens or twenties and nothing that happened before that existed. the world was formed whole at their birth and there is no history. So people who had a very good answer a hundred years ago never existed, to them. God I hope Moore doesn’t get screwed up with Marxists though.

6.
Nergol | October 5th, 2009 at 12:57 am

Yup – capitalism is evil. Get the message from Michael Moore and Paramount Pictures now. Tickets are available at Fandango, or wait for the DVD and Blu-ray release, which will be available at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, and major retailers nationwide.

7.
Allen | October 5th, 2009 at 1:04 am

I haven’t seen the film. But a lot of the reviews seem like the typical sort of non-committal song and dance of the left.

They ironically jab at Moore for “not offering any real conclusions or actions”, when they are in all likelihood even less committed to any kind of concrete measures than he. They endlessly critique and posture, looking for flaws, jibing Moore for real or imagined intellectual lapses and an excess of rhetorical bombast … Why?

Well most commercial film reviewers don’t want to seem too partisan, of course (for obvious reasons of self interest). But, beyond that, there is also this persistent misguided impulse on the part of many “left-intellectuals” to try and passive-aggressively show up the culture war retards by trying to appear all fair minded and intellectually informed.

As if surely the spawn of the culture war industry will come to its senses if only they see how fair and thoughtful their critics are.

Newsflash: they don’t give a shit.

8.
rossiya | October 5th, 2009 at 1:45 am

I laughed when Moore turned a story of Mossad-trained Zionists into a gun control issue in Comumbine. But now he’s upwardly mobile and fully backing the Catholic Communists. He joins the hall of fame alongside Jesuit-educated Marx, Stalin and priesthood-trained Hitler.

Communism is a Jesuit invention and is simply the austere, meager Vatican lifestyle popularized for secular society. Highly recommended in concert with Inquisitions like WWII holocaust with 18million burned alive.

9.
Eren | October 5th, 2009 at 2:01 am

Great article, keep it up.

10.
mikey | October 5th, 2009 at 6:19 am

Moore was on the Howard Stern show recently to plug the latest film. He claims to NOT be a multi millionaire, does NOT finance his own films and does NOT have money in the stock market (has a bank account.) Seems to be an artist; Not a capitalist at all. Most shocking was his description of some of the vicious physical attacks against him.

11.
Quadrillion Dollar Man | October 5th, 2009 at 7:11 am

Yeah so what’s the point of democracy if the capitalists own all the politicians and the regulatory system that’s supposed to be regulating them to protect us from them?

I don’t know why people think that democracy is the solution. How are a bunch of workin fo’k spread out over half a continent supposed to beat moneyed lobbyists working full time, by picking candidates offered to them on TV?

There ain’t gonna be an army of a hundred million working class party members marching on Washington. There has never been any such thing in history. The peasants need to stay home and make their living. Maybe in a place like Afghanistan they take the weekend off to go fight the occupation, but they have to commute back to their jobs at the end.

Politic’s a game for elites. The peasants are just their pawns. Democracy just means you need more pawns and fewer knights.

12.
Pablito | October 5th, 2009 at 7:56 am

Aww. You lefties are so cute. Your politics haven’t been updated since 1841, and damnit, let’s not change now. It’s telling that the people he’d get to speak out against capitalism are priests. They want feudalism, after all, and have backed fascists throughout the 20th century.

13.
Aaron | October 5th, 2009 at 8:23 am

Hey, Technomad, how about you show some God damned evidence? “But he’s WROOOOOONG!” doesn’t count for a whole hell of a lot all by itself.

14.
Aaron | October 5th, 2009 at 8:27 am

I wouldn’t eat the rich unless I couldn’t find anything else. Humans, unsurprisingly, surpass all other animals when it comes to the number of human-affecting pathogens to be found in our flesh; you’d either have to cook the meat to death, please pardon the pun, or you’d be very likely to get sick and die of some kind of horrible illness.

15.
motorfirebox | October 5th, 2009 at 8:43 am

you fail to address one of the most controversial aspects of Moore’s films–his tendency to manipulate facts to create a false impression. for instance, in Bowling for Columbine, he created the impression that the NRA held a rally in response to the Columbine shootings, when the rally had actually been scheduled months in advance. Moore also failed to mention that many of the events at the rally had been canceled in response to the shootings.

16.
Technomad | October 5th, 2009 at 11:40 am

Oh, you want evidence, Aaron? Oh-kay…in Bowling for Columbine, he outright pasted together several different Heston speeches to get one he wanted. He also flat-out lied, again and again, about the NRA—if anything, the NRA was a counter to the Klan, not its bestest buddy.

You love democracy, do you? Democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on the dinner menu—or eleven men and one woman voting on whether to have a gang-bang. Democracy is the idea that two idiots are worth more than Albert Einstein. Democracy is to civilization about what a bone-rotting cancer is to the human body.

17.
nil | October 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am

re: 15

See, this is why I’ll always have Moore’s back–the criticisms people have are always such weak sauce. I saw Bowling For Columbine (which isn’t my favorite of his films by a long shot) and didn’t get the impression that the NRA hosted that rally in response to Columbine–because thinking that is fucking retarded.

Similarly, you got people saying “Moore said Cuban health care is better than the US’s” after his health care movie, when anyone with half a fucking mind could see that the point was that they do pretty damn good for the money they pay, particularly considering the embargo, and that we should therefore be able to do much, much better.

So on the one side you have people saying “Moore is too simplistic” and on the other side you have people missing the point by a mile. I guess people just don’t know how to handle a liberal when he speaks for more than five minutes and isn’t immediately rebutted by some fucking fascist.

18.
Allen | October 5th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

Pablito:

Come on, that was actually almost a decent little jab, but 1841 is so arbitrary. If you’re going to take a shot at the “left” for being 19th century, you should at least pick a relevent/interesting year like 1848 or maybe 1871. That way you can make it seem like you know what you’re talking about.

…
On a related note, what is with all these crazy people and their strange Catholic Church-Marxism-Feudalism-Fascism calculus? What dank God for saken-hole in the vast internet produced them, and can we put a rock over it?

Is this the latest LaRouche thing, or something?

19.
james | October 5th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

@rossiya

Jesuit my dick Communism is a Jewish invention Marx was a Jew, Lenin was a 1/4 Jewish and identified with his heritage as well as the top Communist leaders Kaganovich, Beria, Trotsky, and was financed the wealthiest Jewish bankers in the world Schiff, Warburg, Ashberg and Rothschild.

And here is a quote from the “anti-Semite” Joseph Stalin article in Brdzola newspaper (December, 1901)

Groaning are the oppressed nationalities and religions in Russia, among them the Poles and Finns. Groaning are the unceasingly persecuted and humiliated Jews, deprived even those miserable rights that other Russian subjects enjoy the right to live where they choose, the right to go to school, etc. Groaning are the Georgians, the Armenians and other nations who can neither have their own schools nor be employed by the state and are compelled to submit to the shameful and oppressive policies of Russification.

20.
marketfrankford | October 5th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

1841?

21.
Roquentin | October 5th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

I’m with you on this. The right hates Michael Moore because he’s a threat and most liberals are too chickenshit to take a stand on anything. It’s way more convenient for them to toss Moore under a bus in an effort to appear “moderate,” than to appear in print defending him.

22.
RanDomino | October 5th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

“Democracy” doesn’t mean “voting”; we have voting but is anyone going to claim we have Rule by the People?

Democracy in this sense can only mean worker self-management and community decision-making by consensus. Capitalism shouldn’t be replaced with a Socialist or Social Democrat-style command economy, or with a libertarian-capitalist fantasyland; but with voluntary giving (not barter, which is just a primitive form of capitalism) and community-oriented civic responsibility. Death to title property, contracts, and hierarchy!

23.
Stalinfan 420 | October 5th, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Hollywood and the media in general have no class interest in ending capitalism and so, come against him because he is in the least bit threatening and popular. Both should be viewed more as collaborators with the bankers and the military-industrial complex more than anything. Witness the repeated and endless apologies for US-backed rightwing governments (and their demonization of Leftist regimes) in Latin America since the end of World War II by the likes of the New York Times and Miami Herald. They are trash and any future reckoning must deal with the partisans of capital in the same way that the Nazi propagandists were dealt with at Nuremberg. I use Nuremberg deliberately, because the atrocities of America and of Nazi Germany are of the same scale.

24.
spiffo massive | October 5th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

maybe i’m daft or something, but what exactly do you guys mean when you say “end capitalism”? That’s like saying from tomorrow, let’s end the letter ‘p’, or while we’re at it, let’s end aubergines. the truth is, it’s too much government control that got you where you are, not capitalism per se. and by government i mean the shady back-handed dealings between the rich lobbyists/corporations and the greasy congressmen who’d sell their mothers for a good retirement plan (btw this occurs under all forms of government. to think that communism/socialism doesn’t have its gov’t crooks is plain retarded) what you people really need is a return to a true republic style of government where people feel responsible and civic duty is an honour and privilege, not an investment opportunity. in the few rare occasions that true republics existed in history, they always did great. early roman empire, italian city states like milan and venice, and of course your very own america circa the 19th century. democracy in the sense of what you have in america is trully just an illusion. candidate A or candidate B who equally bad in terms of that they’re both practically owned and ran by the same bunch of people, just that one’s slightly more eloquent and they agree to disagree on certain trivial arbitrary issues. that’s not a real choice by any stretch of the imagination. just keeps the sheep in line.

25.
General Foods | October 5th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

Thank you Eileen, for a satisfying sneer at the universal asininity of our American critics. And thank you to the few posters above who with your lack of basic reading comprehension skills managed to say exactly what Eileen just said, only much more stupidly.

26.
Butohara | October 5th, 2009 at 8:04 pm

“I don’t know why people think that democracy is the solution. How are a bunch of workin fo’k spread out over half a continent supposed to beat moneyed lobbyists working full time, by picking candidates offered to them on TV?”

I think we should have the Couch Potato Revolution. Simply not paying ones bills. Optional if you want to show up to work (but if you were a govt worker, I’d consider it mandatory). Let’s face it, after one month the entire mortgage and credit card industry would be gasping for air. By two months the lack of cash flow and panic by external creditors and bondholders would $h!tcan the whole works. Ultimately, they can’t foreclose everyone (especially if there’s no money to pay the spineless droids who do bother to show up for work), nor can they evict, garnish or otherwise harrass 100 million + people. Don’t even have to get up and go to demonstrations. No targets for cops to shoot at. I’m liking this!

27.
cult of skaro 24 | October 5th, 2009 at 8:15 pm

He does kind of offer an answer in Worker Run Cooperatives. The brief period that I worked in one in college was great. there was a sense of camaraderie and community that I just don’t get in my current job. The pay was not quite as good but at least I had fun there. It sucks I had to leave. But I do see them as a viable solution, should we be able to nurture their growth. Worked for Mondragon

Not to keen on his swing version of the internationale though. One downside to the movie.

28.
wengler | October 5th, 2009 at 8:32 pm

A trade unionist making a commercially successful political documentary for critics must be as bad as a non-academic writing a commercially successful non-fiction book. Some of this criticism may be self-loathing, but I am guessing that it is also class hatred based on the fact that a working class union family produced a guy like Moore. No wonder they needed to be destroyed.

Everyone that has been chewed out by their boss in a job that they hate knows that democracy in the US is a farce. It has to be said though that the mass hypnosis that strangles our political spectrum into an extremely narrow band has kept us in line until something like the economy burning down comes along. We are truly at a tipping point here where the New Deal is moribund and the jackals are maneuvering to ensure a permanent form of corporate state control.

Guys like Moore get in the way of that. Critics feed their masters, but the peonage period of news journalism also ensures that only the spawn of the well off ever become the critical influencers in the first place. The critics’ wince when normal schlubs that get screwed over by the rich are in Moore’s films because they’ve convinced themselves that these people are marginal in terms of the big picture. They are worried that they might have to feel just one iota of guilt for supporting a shameless sociopathic system that destroys millions of people’s lives purposefully and for gain. Though their reptilian instincts quickly dispense of these worries, the one that would subject them to negative consequences is quickly attacked.

I also think they hate that someone on the left can make bold statements and have balls instead of equivocations. These people have a type of revolutionary asceticism that only extends to their rhetoric. Moore thinks every person in this country should have access to healthcare, a livable income, and a pride in their work. This makes him a heretic. And we know he’s a heretic because he is fat(does any of this make sense?).

And of course in this country we are most critical of those that challenge the hierarchy and say that our system wasn’t created by God and Jesus in a divine scheme to make profit. In this he is challenging the Puritanical Calvinist line that permeates the “successful” celebrity journalists that tell us what to do and think. And telling the person that has coasted through life while believing they have merely advanced on “personal achievement” the proverbial born on third and touching home thinking that they have hit a home run,this-THIS-is what is really wrong about Michael Moore.

29.
young redneck | October 5th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

24+27 have it right. It’s impossible to have a republic of free people when the vast majority of us spend a huge chunk of our lives in the petty little dictatorship that is the average American workplace. History’s republics generally solved this problem by limiting the franchise and parceling out all the demeaning work to women, slaves, or whoever else they were oppressing at the time. However, even if we were willing to go down this route again, we couldn’t, because we have a service economy and ~all of our work is demeaning. The only possible way out is to make it possible for ordinary people to make a living and still respect themselves… (Abolish bosses!)

30.
Seymour Butz | October 5th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

I love him so much, I will pay to eat out of Michael Moore’s ass. Good money.

31.
Vlad | October 5th, 2009 at 10:39 pm

@16
The problem is that a merit-based oligarchy is difficult to implement.
Especially after the morons got a taste of democracy.

I saw the film (at a benefit for the UE union); it wasn’t too bad, but I wish it was less US centric and more radical.

BTW Moore encourages people to pirate his films. You really can’t accuse him of profiteering.

I thought the Moore presented a left liberal or social democratic perspective. He promotes cooperatives that can compete in the marketplace, religious leaders who denounce capitalism, and Roosevelt.

Maybe Moore really is a radical, but he is trying to make socialism look patriotic and mainstream?

I would rather the film loose perspective of the Democrats, the regulators, and the Catholics and instead show more of the real suffering caused by capital and more examples of labor taking militant action against it. Trace a product from the earth to the Walmart and show the working conditions along the way. Get Chomsky to explain how media and schooling keep the workers in line while “their” states and corporations commit some of the worst war crimes in history. Cover the IWW and the Spanish civil war. Show how the IMF has kept the developing world in debt and then show some nice riot porn of those resisting the neoliberal order.

I think Moore’s humor meshes pretty well with those behind submedia.tv…if we could get Moore’s populism with submedia’s militancy (minus the primitivist anti-civilization shit), they could make a great film. They should team up.

35.
I want answers! | October 6th, 2009 at 2:19 am

The Criticism here is a twin-pronged one. On the one side, Moore is bashed, while the content of the film is cautiously avoided. On the other side, it is pointed out that some parts in Moore’s other films sucked. Yeah, ok. Now please, offer a criticism, not of Moore, not of his past films, but of this film. Where’s the criticism? That the film is biased? And CNN is a shining beacon of unbiased light? And what the fuck happened in 1841 that’s more important than 1848? Or 1871?

Moore doesn’t offer solutions? Have you retards been sleeping throughout the film? What about passing FDR’s Second Bill of Rights? What about giving Goldman Sachs the boot? What about Work Communes? What about re-integration of Keynesian Economics? What about jailing the bosses and taking away their money? What about taking houses from banks, the ones that were foreclosed, and giving them to the average American family? What about joint strikes when you have been laid off?

I agree completely with you, Spiffo, in one respect: you are daft. “End capitalism” means evolving away from a system where physical plant, technology, and workforces are controlled by unelected, often hereditary dictators with as much legitimacy (in the figurative sense of the word) as the monarchies of old.

As Thorstein Veblen wrote: “…the law of natural selection, as applied to human institutions, gives the axiom: ‘Whatever is, is wrong.’ Not that the institutions of today are wholly wrong for the purposes of the life of today, but they are, always and in the nature of things, wrong to some extent. They are the result of a more or less inadequate adjustment of the methods of living to a situation which prevailed at some point in the past development; and they are therefore wrong by something more than the interval which separates the present situation from that of the past. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are of course here used without conveying any rejection as to what ought or ought not to be. They are applied simply from the (morally colorless) evolutionary standpoint, and are intended to designate compatibility or incompatibility with the effective evolutionary process.”

37.
Quadrillion Dollar Man | October 6th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

What kind of dumb communist thinks people are going to start up worker co-ops? Co-ops only last as long as the workers don’t figure out the capitalists pay better money. The capitalists pay better because they are smarter and more industrious, and anyone with these qualities is not going to share his profits with workers.

Kill the Poor, Eat the Rich and fire fat Micky Moore out of a cannon into a wall of granite.

A Horrible man with a shite plan.

42.
aleke | October 6th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

@37

Im a American! I aint gunna werk at a place that pays $60k and doesnt treat me like shit!!!! I wanna werk at a place that pays me $30k caus uhhh the free market… UHHHH Competition……….. Fuckin commies… Rrrr fuckin blacks….RRRRRRRRRRRAHOWA!

43.
porkers-at-the-trough | October 6th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

god, I _hate_ to quote War Nerd here (actually, not so much, lol) but ol’ “Gary” is correct – IT is ALL TRIBAL !!

“Capitalism” is TRIBAL CONFLICTS under a different name, that is.

The Brits – the OH-SO-MORAL-VALUES VICTORIAN British – will tell you that the Anglo-China “OPIUM WAR” was about “making sure that free markets for Western traders were opened up in China.”
Sheer hoey, of course.. the Opium War was about making DRUG ADDICT CUSTOMERS of all those “inferior” yellow Chinese (and making their rulers and elites cheap, despicable, emasculated puppets & prostitutes in the process).
Go read the London papers at the height of the GREAT (Irish) FAMINE – the London Times from the era (1845-1852) wrote column after column, (preceding the NY Times (“Sulzberger Slimes”) William Safire similar commentary tripe by 150 years), explaining how STARVING the Irish, while EXPORTING GRAIN from Irish estates at the very height of the famine, was “NECESSARY” and productive in the name of “Capitalism” and the Greater British Empire, cheerio, and DAMN those rotten Irish dogs!!

At the moment (today), the Anglo/Scots Protestants and Right-Wing (mostly Jewish) Neo-Cons are running the “free market capitalism” show, aka the “NEW American Century” (which should be called “the New ISRAEL century”), but it is an alliance of convenience of tribes who were ENEMIES (Hello? (German) CHRISTIAN HYPER NATIONALIST morality-flouting Nazis, and White Protestant Supremacist SEGREGATIONISTS) just a few decades ago.

Amazing how “a nation of shopkeepers” kept the mighty “Land Animal” Napoleon at bay.. and went on to RULE THE WORLD, and shortly thereafter
Queen Victoria would become THE WORLD’s BIGGEST EVER DRUG PUSHER (in the name of The East India Tea Company and “Free Market Capitalism” of course) – Hip Hip Hooray!!

44.
Neil | October 6th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

Great interview with MM last week in the Detroit Metro Times; he talks about being rich as “fuck-you money.” He isn’t using it to buy yachts.

Every now and then a site you generally agree with will post an article that leaves you scratching your head. Michael Moore is the ideological champion of The Exiled? His documentaries are kitschy, dripping with juvenile ridicule, deliberately obnoxious, and generally devoid of any sense of civility. I can see how obnoxious ridicule might be popular among Exiled readers and writers, but it’s no surprise that that kind of writing doesn’t get any respect.

46.
az | October 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm

QDM, I’m pretty sure that the issue is that workers by themselves lack the capital to start a co-operative. You know, like, they have to work for a living and all because of that.

47.
rossiya | October 6th, 2009 at 9:28 pm

james:
Jesuits refined and perfected communism in Paraguay. Karl Marx was trained by the Jesuits inside the British Museum in 1848, the Jesuits tutored Karl Marx about the tenets of communism for nearly 30-years. Vladimir Lenin was trained by the Jesuits in Geneva Switzerland, Lenin was given a safe way passage from Geneva up to Russia to spark the Russian Communist Revolution. It was Diego Bergen (Germany’s ambassador to the Vatican during the Weimar Republic) who provided Lenin a transport known as sealed train. Leon Trotsky was given a safe way passage from New York into Russia funded by the Federal Reserve Bank. Joseph Stalin was trained by the Jesuits inside the Orthodox seminary in Tiflis Georgia, Russia. Together with him was Cardinal Agagianian. Joseph Stalin was also undercover Jesuit or Father Stalin, S.J. The communist government turned their back against the will of the Jesuits and the Holy See. The Jesuits retaliated, the Jesuit Father General Count Halke von Ledochowski organized Fascism, like Fascist Italy led by Benito Mussolini and NAZI Germany led by Adolph Hitler. They burned 18million alive in the second Inquisition. Eisenhower removes statues of Virgin Mary from the death camps by special order upon Allied victory.

48.
Trillion Dollar Woman | October 6th, 2009 at 10:16 pm

Qaudrillion Dollar Man, if you think that GM is a co-op…well that pretty much sums up your level of intelligence. Too much CNN kiddo.

Didn’t Moore show some working co-ops? Bread factory, chip making facility….

49.
Expat in BY | October 7th, 2009 at 12:05 am

43. Porkers-at-the-trough

On your British comments, I like how even today the Jardine Airlines logo is clearly an opium poppy plant. The British drug pusher/”Free Market” past is not even hidden in Hong Kong.

47. Rossiya

Not going after your entire passage, but do want to point out that Stalin (or Koba, or Josef Djugashvili) was neither trained by Jesuits or Catholics. He was, as you say, Russian Orthodox (the Georgian Orthodox Church was still supressed in the late 1800s). There was no interfaith cooperation involving the Jesuits, a purely Catholic order (even at the height of their own order’s suppression).

Stalin did pick up his revolutionary ideals while in religious training (to which he was apparently quite devoted for awhile), but lost much of his interest in religion after getting kicked out for revolutionary activities. He was tongue-in-cheek called “the priest” by his fellow revolutionaries for awhile, but preferred the nickname Koba, which was apparently the hero of some revolutionary adventure story.

I thought Montefiore did a pretty good with Stalin’s biography in “Young Stalin”. But he doesn’t mention anything of a Jesuit conspiracy, just the Social-Democrat conspiracy (later Menshevik and Bolshevik conspiracies) that much more clearly did exist.

50.
Allen | October 7th, 2009 at 12:45 am

The idea of Marx being tutored by Jesuits is ridiculous. Karl Marx sitting patiently and being tutored by a bunch of airy ascetics? The iron willed egotist who drove Bakunin out of the First International? There is no way that anyone who actually knew anything about the man could believe that.

What I do know is that David Icke is an ultra crank. Are the Jesuits also supposed to be space reptiles? Do let us all know.

51.
rossiya | October 7th, 2009 at 4:56 am

Expat in BY:
Josef was born to influential Catholic parents Vissarion “Beso” Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina “Keke” Geladze. He was accepted into the Catholic Cappuchin run school at Gori. He graduated in 1892 first in his class and at the age of 14 he was accepted to enter the “Orthodox” Seminary of Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia), a Jesuit institution to be trained as a Jesuit priest.

In spite of contrary history written about the Jesuit run Seminary, the Jesuits remained in Russian territory after the order was banned by Alexander I in 1820, maintaining control of several institutions, including the Seminary of Tiflis. Stalin himself openly admitted the Jesuit control of the institution in his famous interview with Jewish Journalist Emil Ludwig (Cohen):

Ludwig: What impelled you to become an oppositionist? Was it, perhaps, bad treatment by your parents?

Stalin: No. My parents were uneducated, but they did not treat me badly by any means. But it was a different matter at the Orthodox theological seminary which I was then attending. In protest against the outrageous regime and the Jesuitical methods prevalent at the seminary, I was ready to become, and actually did become, a revolutionary, a believer in Marxism as a really revolutionary teaching.

Ludwig: But do you not admit that the Jesuits have good points?

Stalin: Yes, they are systematic and persevering in working to achieve sordid ends. Hut their principal method is spying, prying, worming their way into people’s souls and outraging their feelings….

While accounts of his time at Tiflis have been changed many times, it is universally accepted that Stalin was the star pupils of the Seminary. In the final week of his studies, having completed seven (7) years as the star pupil of the Jesuits, Stalin is variously claimed to have quit or been expelled. Neither account, adequately explains how a seminary student of seven years, suddenly appeared influential and active in coordinating the Georgian Social-Democratic movement less than 12 months later – an achievement that could not possibly have happened without substantial support. The more credible and controversial conclusion is that Stalin did graduate from the Jesuit Seminary as a proper Jesuit priest, with his first assignment being to infiltrate and manage the Georgian underground against the Russian Tsarist Government.
Again, the fact that Stalin was awarded an academic position at the Tiflis Observatory gives credence to his Jesuit credentials and completed study. His double life as a secret leader of the May day uprising of 1901 less than 2 years from graduating from the Jesuit seminary attests to his skill as a key Jesuit agent.

Allen:
At the British Museum you will find two checks for several thousand pounds made out to Carl Marx, and signed by Nathan Rothschild, bankers to the Vatican since the 1700s!

Actually, communism is a joint Jewish-Christian (not just Catholic) conspiracy.

See, the first communist organization of which I am aware was formed by the early followers of Jesus, who were Jewish Christians. Read about it in the Acts of the Apostles. (Spoiler alert: God comes out not just as a Commie, but a (red)dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist, by personally executing two would-be Judeo-Christian commies, or kulaks, who attempt to hide some of their personal property from the Judeo-Christian Politburo.)

But hey, nothing distracts from the searing pain of having the spiked cocks of Satan and his ruling class inner circle constantly violating you than tracing out a labyrinthine, fantasy conspiracy involving Jews and Jesuits.

53.
james | October 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am

@Expat in BY

That is a main stream book they will never ever publish it with the facts of the Jewish connection to Communism. I imagine they will probably stress the bogus notion of Stalin “anti-Semitism” although he was nice enough to create a purely Jewish state in Russia’s Far East and the only Jews he killed en mass where Jewish commissars.

@Josephus P. Franks

The first Communist terrorist organisations in Russia including the one that murdered Tsar Alexander where Jewish. Jews subverted traditional concepts of social governance for there own objective like they do now in the US under Neo-Conservatism to advance there political agenda. Or the fact that the exiled Marxist groups in the US (New York) that comprised the bulk of then new government where 90-95% Jewish and the Bolsheviks never destroyed a single synagogue.

First Russian Marxists Were Jewish

Nicholas Utin, a Jew, the First Russian Marxist, 1860’s to 1870’s.

Instrumental in Creating a Russian Section in the First Communist International.
‘In the 1860s and ’70s, Jewish activists occupied some of the highest positions in the fledgling Russian revolutionary movement.

The “pioneer of Russian-Jewish revolutionary action” was Nicholas Utin, a baptized Jew who was instrumental in creating a Russian Section in the First International.
Known as the first Russian Marxist, Utin was prominent in the struggle of the International’s Marxian wing against the anarchistic tactics of Bakunin. ‘

Philip Mendes, THE NEW LEFT, THE JEWS AND THE VIETNAM WAR, 1965-1972, Lazare Press, North Caulfield, Victoria, Australia, p 10 from material printed originally in Parkin, A.L. The Origins of the Russian-Jewish Labour Movement. F.W.Cheshire Pty Ltd. Melbourne. 1947. p80.

“Utin was followed by a great number of Jews including Mark Natanson, the founder of the Russian Narodnik movement, Paul Axeirod who together with George Plckahnov and Vera Zasulitch formed the “Triumvirate” of the founders of the Russian Social-Democratic movement in 1883, Rosalie Bograd who married Plekhanov, Meir Molodetsky, Gregory Goldenberg, Mw Deutch, Vladimir Jochelson, Aaron Sundelievitch, and Hesya Helfmann, who was among those sentenced to death for the assassination of Czar Alexander.”

‘In the following two decades – in the ’80s and ’90s – the “explosion of revolutionary emotion among Jewish student youth” crystallized into a movement of Jewish socialism, the first of its kind in Jewish history.’

Patkin traces the origins of “Jewish Socialism” to the “two explosive elements – mass misery and intellectual doctrine” which had existed in Jewish life for many previous generations.

These explosive elements had often produced mass revolts against the rich and the powerful in communal affairs, one example being the emergence of the Chassidic movement, Jewish socialism reflected the extension of Chassidism as a doctrine “for the poor” into a “revolutionary situation of social protest and resentment.”‘

“The Communist soul is the soul of Judaism. Hence it follows that, just as in the Russian revolution the triumph of Communism was the triumph of Judaism, so also in the triumph of fascism will triumph Judaism.”

(A Program for the Jews and Humanity, Rabbi Harry Waton, p. 143-144).

“The Jews welcome this revolution in the Christian world, and the Jews should show an example. It is not an accident that Judaism gave birth to Marxism, and it is not an accident that the Jews readily took up Marxism: all this was in perfect accord with the progress of Judaism and the Jews.”

(A Program for the Jews and Humanity, by Rabbi Harry Waton, p. 148

The American Hebrew September 10, 1920:

“The Bolshevist revolution in Russia was the work of Jewish brains, of Jewish dissatisfaction, of Jewish planning, whose goal is to create a new order in the world. What was performed in so excellent a way in Russia, thanks to Jewish brains, and because of Jewish dissatisfaction, and by Jewish planning, shall also, through the same Jewish mental and physical forces, become a reality all over the world.”

“Some call it Marxism — I call it Judaism.”
(The American Bulletin, Rabbi S. Wise, May 5, 1935).

Rossiya (#52) very good… even if only 1/4 of your column is accurate (not saying it is or isn’t), that’s some really good stuff!
Especially your bit to Allen:
— “At the British Museum you will find two checks for several thousand pounds made out to Carl Marx, and signed by Nathan Rothschild, bankers to the Vatican since the 1700s” —
EXACTLY! Ever since the Rothshchild London (& European branches not controlled by France) bankes almost single-handedly underwrote (FINANCED $$) the British PENNINSULAR WAR against Napoleon (hard to find a good link, most are ‘conspiracy’ pages, but this one is pretty good)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington#Peninsular_War
the Rothschilds Bank has REIGNED SUPREME in London, the most powerful bank in England.
(Literally – the London Financial District is an entity unto itself! –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London#Local_government ).

The ipso facto corrolary of this is that the ROTHSCHILDS were THE MOST POWERFUL, influential, AND PROFITABLE London financial institutions… during BOTH the OPIUM PUSHING war, AND the MASS FAMINE “enclosures” of Ireland!!

As we all know, all professional communities are small worlds, especially when you get to the very top strata. Much less the top tier of the MEGA FINANCIAL institutions (especially before the Arabs, Japanese, and China came roaring on the scene in the past 5 decades.)
In Western (US/Anglo) financial world, JP MORGAN, GOLDMAN-SACHS, CITI, CHASE, NY Bank Mellon, and probably even (former Charlotte based NCNB, now) Bank of America are ALL CLOSELY ALLIED with the Rothschilds’ Neo-Con/Likdunik (Israel Right-Wing) agenda… WebOfDebt.com explains that many financial historians consider JP Morgan to have been the Rothschilds’ FRONT MAN in America for the 1st half of the 20th Century; and the rise of Goldamn-Sachs in America this 2nd half of the 20th century represents the family being able to DISPENSE with the pretense of a gentile front bank.

(Which is to say, THEY REALLY ARE BEHIND ALL of the great economic atrocities of the past 150+ years, including our current $23 trillion – nearly 2x the ENTIRE US annual GDP – derivatives failures/foreclosures/bankrupticies “BAILOUTS for BANKERS ONLY” Recession!)

55.
Expat in BY | October 7th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

51. Rossiya

1. Catholics, I agree, were allowed in certain parts of the Russian Empire (more specifically, from present western Belarus westward), but they weren’t allowed in all parts of Russia, and certainly not in Georgia, which was never dominated by the Roman Church (despite Catholicate appearing in the names of various Orthodox Sees south of the Caucasus). After the Russian occupation of Georgia was completed during Tsar Alexander I’s time, the only church allowed to operate in the Georgian Exarchy was the Russian Orthodox Church (and it stayed that way until the brief post-revolutionary Georgian republic in the 1920s).

2. Beso and Keke Djugashvili were very definitely not Catholic and were not all that influential. Beso was a cobler that drank himself slowly into oblivion (after his wife suffered a series of failed pregnancies before Joseph’s birth). In fact, the reason Joseph Djugashvili was allowed in the Gori Church School and the Orthodox Seminary at all was because of the stubborn will of his mother, Keke, not the “influence” of Beso, who anyway wanted his son to be a cobbler like him.

3. As you quoted from Stalin, he described his training as Jesuitic, or Jesuit-like, but the school was run by an Orthodox Archimandrite by the name of Serafim. Archimandrite is not a normal Catholic office and certainly not a Jesuit office, it’s an Orthodox office. The so-named “Tiflis Orthodox Seminary” does not need to be Jesuit in order to be run in a manner similar to a Jesuit institution.

4. Stalin’s “academic life” at the Tiflis Weather Observatory consisted of spending 3 nights a week on a weather tower taking hourly temperature and barometer readings (“probationer-observer”). He got the job through a friend from Gori who already held the position on a different shift. To call his work there as some kind of academic career is like saying a casual employee of Harvard University is a member of the faculty.

5. Officially, he failed seminary because he didn’t attend the final examination. He had a personality conflict with the only Georgian priest at the institution, who was trying to show he could be stricter than any Russian. If the priests had control of the rebelious pro-Georgian culture of the seminary, there would have been no revolutionaries to have emerged there. Stalin was very pro-Georgian in his early days as a revolutionary.

The short of all this is that there was no Jesuit conspiracy in the Transcaucasus. There were other conspiracies, and perhaps the occasionally traveling Jesuit priest of little or no interest passing through, but Stalin’s life story is hardly involved with the Society of Jesus (though it may have involved a “Jesuitic” youth, by his own description). Maybe you would be more correct to say that the Social Democrats (future “Communists”) in the South Caucasus took after the Jesuits during their revolutionary phase, rather than suggesting they were controlled by them in some sinister plot.

James and Porkers – do you even feel Satan’s and his oligarch friends’ cocks violating you anymore? Or does your preoccupation with the ethno-religious identity of those who subscribe to various political ideologies so distract you that the pain and discomfort is a vague memory?

I’d be more inclined to see a WASP conspiracy at work, but what does it matter? The point is that the economic system in operation on this planet is destructive and deadly, and it must be changed over the opposition of that fraction of the population (whatever their various ethnicities and religions are) that disproportionately benefits from it.

57.
mijj | October 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

just a small observation:

“Moore is too simplistic”

=

“Moore has presented the issue in a way that I can understand – and it hurts. I’d rather it was explained in way complicated enough for me not to gain insight – so i can ignore the obvious and cling onto my fluffy fantasies.”

58.
james | October 7th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

@Josephus P. Franks

The Jews dominate and they will always be on top due to there coalitions and group strategy of helping each other out and acquire a monopoly in each field.
They started with there domination of the banks creating powerful banking dynasties, then political organs and secret societies and media.

The US is essentially a colony of Israel.

“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”
– Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001

Countries that don’t yield to there dominion like Tzarist Russia or Iraq, etc they will use the power of the state to exert there control over that country like they got the US to attack Iraq and are pushing for war against Iran.

59.
porkers-at-the-trough | October 7th, 2009 at 7:44 pm

josephus… are you an IDIOT ??

@ #56 wrote: “does your preoccupation with the ethno-religious identity of those who subscribe to various political ideologies so distract you that the pain and discomfort is a vague memory?

I’d be more inclined to see a WASP conspiracy at work…”

Hey, you vulgar idiot – WHAT THE HELL do you think “WASP” stands for ???

“White Anglo-Saxon PROTESTANT.”
And that “P” is not just a superfluous “ADD ON” letter… PROTESTANTISM _defined_ the English wars vs France, Spain (hello, every hear of the ARMADA??!), the Irish, and even suppressing the Scots, “Bonnie Prince Charlie” and the “JACOBITES” were Catholics bent (as Queen “Bloody Mary” had tried before) on restoring The One True Faith throughout England – Protestants be tied to the stake! (and lit on fire, that is).
There can be no doubt – THE big reason the Brits were SO MURDEROUSLY FEROCIOUS in their occupation of Ireland (and Scotland), was precisely because they were so paranoid of their neighbors INVITING IN LARGE,(Catholic) ARMIES of the GREAT continental EMPIRES of the age when (prior to defeat of Armada) England was just a small, European backwater compared to France and Spain… and, as in so many tribal wars, ethnic conflicts, and imperial conflicts, RELIGION was often a major, THE MAJOR defining characteristic.

(The ONLY difference between Serbs & Croats is their religious affiliations, Orthodox & Catholic respectively.. the Ustashe/Nazi/CATHOLIC GENOCIDE of Yugoslavian Serbs claimed an estimated 800,000 victims during WWII, for the Serbs having the temerity to hold out for TWO WHOLE WEEKS before giving in to Hitler’s demands!

60.
porkers-at-the-trough | October 8th, 2009 at 8:22 pm

wow. sorry for the “heavy” response that i.josephus goaded me in to (#59 above)
(Michale Moore works his very Catholic “charity for all” narrative into all his movies, especially “Capitalism, A Love Story” with appearances by his father, his friend, bishops and arch-bishops), but, hey, “Where are all those good War-Nerd fans when ya need ’em?”

The actual Serb DEFIANCE of ol’ Adolf was actually closer to TWO DAYS !!
(could use a little help here)
but provoked the “barbarous genius” of Hitler into no less than…”the most catastrophic decision of his entire career.”
As this blatantly pro-Serb post lays out…. but only by exclusively quoting William L. Shirer’s masterpiece, “The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich.”http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/book-shirer.html
Needless to say, the fatal, unforgivable sin in war is HUBRIS and ARROGANCE… and the “Greed Is Good” masters of the universe, er, “masters of capitalism” have been wallowing in hubris since at least Gordon Gecko appeared on big screens in 1987.

61.
Flatulissimo | October 8th, 2009 at 9:38 pm

Why don’t you fools start your own blogs or websites, so I can not go there anytime I don’t want to read your thoughts?

Which would be all the time.

62.
Adult | October 9th, 2009 at 8:40 am

All these calls for ending capitalism are cute, like a freshmen year political science seminar. I had the same ideas when I was 19, but then my dad, who grew up in a communist society, sat me down and told me what it was like to grow up under a non-capitalistic society. Communism is a hellish system and has failed everywhere from Ethiopia to Cuba. Anybody who is a communist has no concept of the real world and human nature. Capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others. Grow up, children.

63.
james | October 9th, 2009 at 4:57 pm

@Adult

I masturbate to gay Jewish porn. Do you?

64.
james | October 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am

I was waiting for the Jewish censor to rise again.

[ALL CENSORED]

Censor that and you are condonning child rape and murder for entertainment Ames.

The problem with Michael Moore is not his movies – they are well done and funny, especially his first one Roger and Me. No doubt he’s a very talanted director and deserves his success to a degree.

The problem with Michael Moore has been his message. Go out and vote for the Democrats. As anyone with a brain knows, looking to Obama and his Wallstreet cronies who financed his election, to help us on mainstreet is ridiculous. Either Michael is being incredibly naive and silly or dumb and a liar when telling interviewer Charlie Rose that he’s so disappointed in Mr. Obama.

He may very well have made a pact with the devil to get big Hollywood financing he had to keep the Ruling CLass message in tact – vote for the Democrats and all will be well. He even actively fought against Ralph Nader’s last presidential candidacy, the only one who spoke the truth about what Michael’s talking about.

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